where the two cultures meet

Snakes Exposed

Mark Laita has found a way of revealing beauty when the eye of the beholder is programmed to stimulate fear. When these normally camouflaged snakes are photographed under bright lights against a black background, they show dramatic patterns and vivid colours. The pictures are recently published by HN Abrams in a book called Serpentine.

pit viper

Away from their familiar environments, the reptiles show unfamiliar features. It is as though the subject has become the object. Its innate beauty takes over from the fear of external threat.

palm pit viper

royal python red spitting cobra

king cobra

Laita quotes the early twentieth century German poet Rainer Maria Rilke: “Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that needs our love.”